Like Soldiers
by wazlib88
Summary: The war wasn't really over, not even seven years later. Just as happiness can be found in the darkest of times, darkness can seep in during the happiest of times. But in the end, hope can outweigh fear, if you've got enough to live for.


A/N: Hello, here I am with more Romione that isn't FAL - but that one will see an update later this weekend, I believe! Anyway, this one-shot is a bit strange. It starts off fluffy, then moves toward angsty, then becomes hopeful. The first draft was also written between the hours of 1 and 4 in the morning, though it was edited at normal human hours. It was written for week 2 of Ollivander's Challenge on tumblr, hosted by simplypotterheads. The prompt I chose this week was: "This is bigger than anything _reparo_ can fix." Set in April 2005.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that J.K. Rowling owns. Unless she owns the American copies of her books, I guess.

* * *

He came home an hour late on an ordinary Tuesday to find her staring pensively at the spring rain that was falling outside the window of the house - _their_ house, which they'd just purchased last month in anticipation of their expanding family. Her hand was resting on her stomach, rubbing lightly. It was only when she turned her head in response to his light touch on her shoulder that he realized her eyes were damp.

"What's wrong, love?" he asked concernedly, moving behind her to give her shoulders a proper massage. She relaxed a bit under his ministrations, but he could tell that she was on edge.

"I don't know," she said softly, turning her gaze back to the streaks of water left on the window. "I've been feeling a bit off all afternoon. I'm sure it's just the hormones, but I ducked out of work a bit early anyway."

"Good. You ought to give yourself a rest when you need it," Ron said.

"Baby agrees," Hermione remarked, resuming the movement of her hand across her belly. "And what Baby says goes."

"That's how we know she's ours," Ron said with a grin, leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of his wife's head. "Stubborn as a mule, just like her parents."

Hermione turned around in her seat to face him with a small smile. "We don't know yet that Baby's a she."

"I've got a feeling," Ron said knowingly, moving to the kitchen. "What would Baby like for dinner?"

Hermione's face crinkled in a way Ron had always found adorable as she searched for the answer. "Soup," she declared a moment later.

"Any particular kind?" he asked, rummaging through the cupboards for the proper ingredients.

"Chicken noodle, please," Hermione requested. "Would you like some help?"

"Nope," Ron replied, turning to beam at her again. "In fact, why don't you go lie down? A spot of dinner in bed might be nice tonight, don't you think?"

Hermione giggled - another adorable gesture. "We certainly haven't done that in awhile."

"Well, we've got to live it up now, before Baby completes her quest for family domination," Ron quipped. Hermione giggled again, and Ron thanked the stars that he'd somehow found a woman who liked his silly jokes. She kissed him quickly on the cheek before making her way upstairs, leaving Ron to hum contentedly as he cooked their dinner.

And so they spent the evening eating chicken noodle soup in their bed, talking about anything and everything. It had been awhile since they'd done this, just the two of them. Their jobs had a way of keeping them exceptionally busy. Hermione had never quite shaken her tendency to throw herself wholeheartedly into her work, and Ron hoped she never would. He himself had recently been promoted, and though he wasn't on the field quite so much anymore, he'd been assigned a new set of responsibilities, which included far more paperwork than he'd ever encountered in his life. Oftentimes, their evenings would consist of them sitting at opposite ends of their home office, going through various case files or forms. But some nights, like tonight, they let work fall to the wayside for awhile and simply enjoyed each other's company. For Ron, this was the best part of being married - being able to share every seemingly mundane day of his life with the woman he loved, who, for some reason he'd never quite understand, loved him right back.

"I've got an appointment with a healer set for Friday morning," Hermione said conversationally some hours after they'd finished their soup. "Would you like to come?"

"Alright," Ron agreed. "Will they be able to show us Baby again?"

The last time he'd accompanied Hermione to one of her appointments, they'd been able to see a magical projection of the inside of her uterus. Baby was no bigger than a plum yet, according to the Healer, but Ron would never forget the warm feeling that had filled his insides upon seeing the small fetus that was their child. It had hit him then, that he was going to be a dad, and he wondered how it was possible to love Baby so much already. He and Hermione had both shed a few tears that day; he could only imagine how much of an emotional mess they'd be when Baby actually arrived - when they could hold her in their arms. He was quite certain already that he would never have trouble producing a Patronus again.

Hermione nodded in answer to his question. "I believe so. She'll be a bit bigger this time, too."

Ron beamed at her. "See, you think it's a she, too."

"I've just got used to you calling her a she," Hermione protested half-heartedly, but the smile on her face gave her away.

"When do we find out for sure?" Ron asked.

"It will be a few more weeks before they can check," Hermione answered. "If we want to know now, that is."

"It'd be easier," Ron pointed out. "Then we'll have more time to bicker over what to name her, and to decorate the nursery and all that, too."

"Who says we'll bicker?" Hermione asked, sliding down underneath the covers as she spoke.

"We're Ron and Hermione, of course we'll bicker," Ron replied, shedding his trousers and joining Hermione under the warm duvet. He reached over to the bedside table to find his old Deluminator, and he promptly turned the lights out.

"What about Rosalie for a girl? Or perhaps Rhianne or Riley," Hermione suggested quietly.

"Why the 'R' names?" Ron asked curiously.

In the darkness, Ron could just make out a slight blush on Hermione's cheeks. "Your name starts with 'R,'" she muttered.

A slow grin spread across Ron's face. "You're such a sap," he teased, but leaned over to kiss her quickly anyway.

"You love it," Hermione retorted, settling into his side.

"Well, I love _you_, so I s'pose it comes with the package," he replied. "And I do like Rosalie. Well...maybe. What about just plain Rose?"

"Rose," Hermione repeated, testing the name on her tongue. "Rose Weasley."

"Rose Weasley," Ron affirmed. "I like it."

"I do too," Hermione said simply. "So if Baby's a girl, she'll be our Rose."

"Which she is, so it's settled," Ron replied. Hermione, however, wasn't so easily convinced.

"We can talk about boys' names tomorrow," she said sleepily. "Even if we're right and Baby _is_ a girl, I'm sure we'll be having a boy eventually."

"Course we will, we're Weasleys," Ron declared with a great yawn. "Good night, love."

"Good night," Hermione replied, leaning over to press a kiss to his chest before settling in to rest. They drifted off to sleep within minutes, completely content and satisfied.

But if they'd learned one thing in their lives, it was that purely good things did not always remain so. What was happiness one moment could easily fade into despair the next. Peace was always a temporary condition.

That was why Ron was not surprised to be woken by his whimpering, thrashing wife in the middle of the night. He was frustrated, sad, and angry with the world, but not surprised. Her nightmares were infrequent now, but they were equally if not more intense than those she'd suffered from throughout that fated summer seven years previously. The thing about the war, as Ron had learned the hard way, was that it wasn't over. It would never _truly_ be over, not when the reminders of what they'd lost were so close at hand.

"Wake up, Hermione, please," Ron implored her, holding one of her hands in his own and using the other to try to shake her awake. But she seemed to take this as some sort of threat, and she only moved all the more frantically as a result. She was sobbing now, and he could hardly handle it.

"Hermione!" Ron repeated, stroking her hair back from where it had stuck to the cold sweat on her forehead. "Hermione, you're alright, please wake up!"

Then, she let out a scream, and Ron stopped his efforts for just a moment. She'd never once screamed during one of these episodes. He hadn't heard that particular noise in years - seven years, to be exact, and he had hoped to never hear it again. He struggled to overcome his initial shock, but Hermione seemed to have woken herself with the noise; her eyes fluttered open in a panic.

"Ron! Ron, she was - she was -"

"Just a nightmare," Ron responded, his voice dry as he pulled her into his arms. "You're alright, it's just a nightmare." He knew perfectly well who "she" was, and he felt a strong resurgence of hatred for the woman that had done this to her seven years ago, and who had haunted both of their dreams in the time since.

"Should have known," Hermione hiccupped, her voice muffled by his chest. "I've been feeling off all day, miserable even, til you got home. I should have known-"

"Shh," Ron said soothingly, rubbing her back in small circles. "We're alright. We're here," he said, perhaps more for his own benefit than for hers.

On that day seven springs ago, Ron had sincerely believed that there was no one he hated more than Bellatrix Lestrange, because she had hurt Hermione. It was only in the years that followed that Ron realized just how much he despised the woman. The scar on Hermione's neck had faded over the years; it was barely visible now unless one was looking for it. But the healing process involved more than physical scars, and it was the mental scars that had cut the deepest.

One of the things Ron found most amazing about Hermione was her brilliant mind. She had a way of thinking about things how no one else could. The way her brain worked was fascinating to him; even though he reckoned he knew her better than just about anyone, she still found ways to surprise him. But every now and then, Bellatrix Lestrange would work her way into Hermione's thoughts - a crime on par with any of her others, in Ron's opinion. The woman may have ceased to exist on that morning in May seven years ago, but the memory of her was too strong to be eradicated. No matter how hard they tried to forget, she found a way to creep back in every now and then, just as the memory of Tom Riddle haunted Harry's dreams to this day.

The irony struck Ron like an anvil. They'd fought a war to free the world, but their own thoughts were liable, at any moment, to be imprisoned by their experiences. Even now, seven years on, the war was not truly over, and it never would be; their thoughts would never be completely free. They never knew when or why it would happen, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

And that was why Ron was awake at just gone two on a chilly Wednesday morning, shedding unbidden tears as he embraced his crying wife, hoping that if he held her long enough, it would be enough to make the nightmares disappear. He knew this was an unfounded hope, but he clung to it nevertheless because it was all he had to give her.

"It was worse this time," Hermione said quietly as her tears began to dry. "I - it wasn't just me. Sh-she hurt you, and Baby, and..." She broke down into a fresh round of sobs, unable to continue.

"Shh," Ron soothed. "She'll never be able to hurt any of us again, love, you know that." He told himself that it wasn't really a lie, not entirely, because it was true that Baby would never suffer the way they had - the way they still continued to. But the thought of it remained. It was no wonder she had screamed. Ron tightened his embrace, and she immediately reciprocated.

"Why?" Hermione whimpered a few moments later. "Why isn't it over?"

Ron sighed heavily, pulling back just enough so that he could look at her properly. "Because this is bigger than anything _reparo_ can fix," he said simply.

"We were okay," Hermione whispered. "Just a couple of hours ago, everything was fine. So why? Why now?"

Ron was silent, because there was no fair answer. But then, she cuddled closer to him again and he felt her very slightly protruding belly brush up against his stomach. "Because we've got more to lose now," he said quietly, astounded by his own realization. Now they were both silent, because they knew it to be true. It didn't matter that the threat had gone, because the idea of losing the world they'd fought so hard to create was more terrifying than anything else.

"I hate this," Hermione admitted a moment later. "I hate feeling like they've won somehow."

Ron nodded. "I know."

"But they haven't," she continued. "We won't let them."

"I know that, too," Ron replied, leaning back once again to kiss her soundly on the mouth. "I love you."

"And I love you," she replied. They lay awake much longer this time, each lost in their own thoughts but comforted by the other's presence. Eventually, they drifted off again, this time into a bit of an uneasy sleep. It would likely be a bit of a rough week, they knew from experience, but they would get through it just as they always had.

It was true - in the end, they were stronger than any nightmare they could have had. They both knew this would not be the last time their past tortured their dreams, but they knew that it was okay, because they would always wake up into a better world, a world in which they would not let their fears control them. They were Gryffindors, after all, and in the end, it wasn't that they had more to lose - it was that they had more to fight for. They had their family now - and their little Rose. The war would never really be over, but they would never stop protecting that which they held most dear. It would never be _fixed_, not really, but they would sure as hell never stop trying, and that made all the difference in the world.

* * *

"Just let me hold you when you're falling apart.

Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down."

-Rob Thomas

* * *

A/N: So that happened. It was sort of strange - matches the tone of a couple of my other angsty post-DH works, I think, but focuses more on the long-term effects than on the time immediately after the war. I've actually been bouncing around an idea like this for awhile, inspired by the song quote I included above and the idea of the war never really being over. Then this week's prompts came, and someone tweeted about thought always being free (so naturally I thought "but is it?") - so I built from there, and it all fit together into this compact little fic. Let me know if you enjoyed it or if it was rubbish.


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